Tuesday, August 13, 2013

Egyptian Vulture

The Egyptian vulture is found in southern Europe, northern Africa, and western Asia. They typically nest on cliff ledges, crags and rocky outcroppings. In areas like India they are often found nesting on buildings and sometimes large trees. European populations migrate south into Africa after the breeding season ends. The Egyptian vulture population is in decline through out most of its range. This is most drastic in India where their population has declined by nearly 90% over the past 10 years. In Europe and the Middle East populations dropped by about 50% from 1980 to 2001 and even in Africa the populations are in a decline.

Egyptian vultures eat a wide variety of things including carrion, organic waste, insects, eggs and small invertebrates. The Egyptian vulture is small compared to many of the other predators and scavengers that live in their region. For this reason they have evolved to become a sort of specialist when it comes to scavenging. Smaller scavengers do not usually get on to a carcass until last, when there is very little meat left, so the Egyptian vulture uses its long thin beak to get meat that is left in tight places that larger predators and scavengers have a difficult time getting into. That is also why the Egyptian vulture does not have a bald head, like many other species of vultures, because they rarely need to stick their whole head into the carcass to get to their food. This is Osiris. He is a permanent education bird at the World Bird Sanctuary in St Lois Missouri. For the past five or more years, the World Bird Sanctuary has put on programs each March at the Carpenter Nature Center here in the Twin Cities. Osiris was part of the program in 2012.